Don't Mess With a King
by Aublanc
Summary: Jack Frost was under the protection of the Nightmare King. Anyone stupid enough to mess with what belonged to Pitch would suffer greatly, and leaving the Spirit of Winter in the middle of a desert to melt into oblivion fell under that 'stupid' category.


Fill for a kink meme prompt:

_One day, someone with a vengeance against the Spirit of Winter(Jack Frost) decides to keep the Spirit hostage. Little do they know, the Spirit of Winter held hostage is Pitch's husband/Soulmate/Other Half. And Pitch and his nightmares are pretty protective and possessive of what is theirs. So cue BAMF/Protective/Possessive Pitch and his Nightmares._

* * *

It wasn't cold, and it certainly wasn't dark, but he was terrified- more terrified than he'd ever been before. Jack rammed the bars of the steel cage again, desperately hoping that they'd magically give way. But while he himself did not always follow the laws of nature, the cage was dead set on remaining perfectly solid. The ricochet hurled the winter spirit to the ground, and Jack panted with both exhaustion and fear. He heard a laugh echo from somewhere to his left and craned his head to look, but the glare of the sun forced his gaze back down.

Plink. Plink.

"Face it, boy, you'll melt long before you break through those bars. And no one is coming to save you, either."

Jack growled low in his throat and pulled his hands in towards his chest. He tried to not look at the mess his fingers were becoming as the rays of the early desert sun frightfully illuminated him. Already there was no distinction between the skin and nail, and small drops of water were steadily rolling off the tips.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

"It looks like I shouldn't have even bothered with making sure there was plenty of light, because who would ever want to bother with a weak spirit like you, especially the Boogeyman? You're nothing."

Having already heard the same speech at least half a dozen times since his capture, the winter spirit ignored the other in favor of putting his hands under his hoodie to try and preserve his core temperature. Dread filled him when the only thing that happened was that water quickly began to saturate the dark blue fabric. His fear didn't go unnoticed and that knowing, smug, victorious chuckle taunted him again, making Jack clench his eyes shut tight as he tried to keep from panicking.

'Pitch will come, Pitch will come.' He chanted as the sun rose ever higher into the sky. There was not a single shadow to be seen.

Plink. Plink.

Plonk.

Jack screamed. A chunk of ice, having once been the top half of Jack's left pinky finger, glided across the floor of the metal cage. The Spirit of Winter soon copied its descent, collapsing weakly into the ever growing pool of water. His chant fled from his brain as he struggled just to keep his eyes open.

Suffocating heat plagued the trembling boy as he floated between waking, delirious dreams, and an abyss. Moments of clarity blurred with his hallucinations. He saw what vaguely looked like a giant hummingbird reaching into his cage, but he distantly thought that that was silly because birds were suppose to want to stay on the outside of the bars. And then there was the large bunny... or maybe it was a kangaroo? running around shouting phrases he wasn't even sure were in English. He also saw dancing pink spiders somewhere in that fray, though he was a bit dubious as to whether or not the massive gold dinosaurs were also real.

But nothing was as clear as the agonizing burning the pulsed through his body and the hideous cracking that accompanied the loss of another finger or toe or whatever else was melting off in that unforgiving desert heat. He could feel the unnerving damp of the water- of his body -as it soaked through his clothes and collected on the searing heat of the metal floor. He was most likely evaporating as well, and if Jack had been more aware he would have been horrified at the thought of how he must now look.

However, the winter spirit's mind was long gone, conscious only of the heat as it burned and burned and burned through his very core. He was unaware of the battle ongoing just a few feet away from where his body- convulsing and choking on slush as it gushed from pale blue lips -lay. The Guardians kept shooting horrified and frightful looks towards the mess in the cage as they tried to combat the summer spirit that was intent on killing the frost child. They tried to reach the boy within its unyielding bars, but the other spirit was not keen on letting his quandary go. Tooth ducked under another blast of fire as she futilely tried to close in on the gloating spirit.

"Tooth, try an' slow him down!" The Easter Bunny shouted as he caught his boomerang on its return from another miss. "I don' think Puddles over there has too much time left!"

"I'm trying! But it's hard to fight in this heat, and he's just thriving on it!" The flittering fairy called back, making another unsuccessful lunge at the grinning elemental. North swore in Russian as a wave of flames forced him away from where he was trying to power through the bars that were keeping the dying winter child in place.

"Sandy, make shade! Try and buy more time!" The large Cossack yelled up at the small sandman, distracting him from creating another sauropod. Sandy gave a quick nod then rose higher into the sky upon his flowing cloud of sand, arms raised above his head as if he were pleading for some sort of miracle. He moved his arms in a circular pattern, each cycle giving birth to more and more dream sand. It hung heavy in the air, blotting out the sky and making an ever growing shadow.

When the summer spirit finally realized what Sandy was doing, it was already too late. Before he could even finish making a proper fireball, the expansive shadow came alive. Ear shattering shrieks and neighs preceded the Nightmares only by an instant as they bounded up out of the writhing darkness, nostrils flaring and hooves pounding. It was pandemonium.

Unsure of whether or not the new arrivals were friend or foe, the Guardians retreated towards the cage while attacking any of the black horses that drew too near. They kept on guard, knowing that there was only one spirit responsible for things spewing out of shadows and that Pitch was not always very amicable towards them. Sandy, realizing his sand had made the shade necessary for the fear beings to emerge, moved to disperse the thick cloud.

"Fool! What do you think you are doing? Keep the sand there, or I will personally take you apart grain by grain!" Recognizing the low, scathing voice, Sandy halted his movements and looked to where a pool of darkness began taking on human form.

"Pitch! What on earth are you doing here?" Bunny shouted, breaking off his defensive stance from where the other Guardians had gathered before Jack and advancing on the now visible Nightmare King. Amber eyes glanced towards where the remaining two Guardians were holding their position- no, behind them, Bunny realized, when a foreign expression looking almost like worry crossed Pitch's face -before turning away from the four all together.

"My business here does not concern you. Or have you yet to realize that you are not my target today?" And sure enough, the Guardians realized that every single Nightmare was converging on a single point, exploding into sand and then reforming as more and more piled on top of each other. Fountains of flames erupted from between the gaps in the writhing hoard of black grains, but each blast was quickly snuffed out and every succeeding one was smaller and smaller. Shrill screams of unbridled terror rose from the mass of dark tendrils as the summer spirit was dragged into obscurity.

It as over as suddenly as it started, and the Guardians could only stare in astonishment at the spot where the monstrous horses and horribly outmatched spirit had been only moments ago. Pitch, however, immediately sunk back into his shadows, silently reappearing inside the cage beside the fallen spirit. Jack was barely recognizable by this point, his features watered down and blurred as his flesh wept in the heat. He twitched and jolted with each gurgling breath he took, every exhale accompanied by a new gush of icy liquid. The Nightmare King wasted no more time as he swept in and gathered the broken boy in his arms. As shadows rose to take the two away, Bunny finally regained his wits enough to shout out.

"Wait! Where are you takin' him?"

"Home."

And the two vanished from sight.

It was a long time before the Guardians saw either spirit again. Pitch had taken Jack to a ravine in the middle of the arctic after he realized his lair wasn't cold enough, immersing the boy in the snow in order to hopefully halt the melting in time to save Jack's life. During the dicey days where Pitch had no choice but to watch and wait to see whether or not Jack would survive the ordeal, he relived his anxiety by torturing the foolish spirit his Nightmares had captured. The sand creatures reveled in causing the spirit anguish just as much as Pitch did, and every moment for the elemental was filled with terror and agony. But nothing they did satisfied their wrath, for not even freezing the burning spirit within the ice could atone for what happened to Jack.

When Pitch had found the young winter spirit over two hundred years ago, he wasn't sure what exactly had prompted him to take the boy under his wing. But take him he did, and he never regretted that decision. After all, nothing goes better together than cold and dark. The very idea of losing that beloved companion which he had finally found was daunting. More than daunting. It filled Pitch with fear unlike any he had ever felt before, and even the screams of his prey could not keep Pitch from being nearly overwhelmed with distress.

Not even once did Pitch leave his beloved frost child's side, and the first thing that Jack saw upon awakening was the Boogeyman, smiling with relief. The two remained in the arctic for a long time, and any time another spirit wandered too close- said spirit normally being one of the Guardians, brimming with curiosity over the youth that Pitch seemed to be obsessed over and unable to keep themselves away for long -the Nightmares would viciously force them back. They would not make the same mistake and let someone get at Jack again. Jack belonged to the shadows and no one else. Pitch would make sure everyone knew the consequences of messing with what was his.

When the Man in the Moon tried making Jack a Guardian a hundred years later, the other four didn't even attempt to recruit him. They had seen the merciless efficiency in which Pitch handled the summer spirit, a spirit that at the time even they were struggling to defeat. That day taught the Guardians- and every other spirit- a lesson not soon forgotten: you don't mess with Jack Frost unless you want to face the undivided wrath of Pitch Black.

It was no wonder then that no one ever bothered him again.

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How I do so love a Jack that melts. Also, anyone want to beta a FrostIron fanfic? I need a beta.


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